An epidemiologist and data computer scientist model how many lives might have been saved in the US since July if all states vaccinated their populations as well as our best state (Vermont). Emma Pierson, Jaline Gerardin and Nathaniel Lash write in their NYT piece, “The Lives Lost to Undervaccination, in Charts.”  They estimate that number is at least 16,000. 

Someone needs to let Republican governors know that stemming the Delta spike would be a lot better for the economy than their specious railing against vaccine and mask mandates.

A large (>340,000) randomized controlled trial of mask wearing benefits conducted in Bangladesh suggests that yes indeed there are some benefits.

XKCD on climate change.  He includes a link to the referenced Exxon internal report that predicts a 1°C increase in average global temperatures by 2022 (check out page 14 of the report).  Shades of Big Tobacco…

David Leonhardt asks an important question in his July 27’s “The Morning” NYT newsletter. Conservative supreme court justices retire by their 80s. Some liberals don’t. Why not?

I applaud the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine (AMDA), The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA), the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (PIDS), and the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists (SIDP) for producing their consensus statement recommending that:

“COVID-19 vaccination should be a condition of employment for all healthcare personnel. Exemptions from this policy apply to those with medical contraindications to all COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States and other exemptions as specified by federal or state law…

The panel conducted an eight-week review of evidence on the three vaccines authorized for use in the United States, vaccination rates, and employment law to develop the statement.

Primum non nocere.  I believe that we in health care have a moral obligation to do all we reasonably can to protect our patients and fellow workers.

Kara Swisher has an excellent opinion piece in the NY Times where she discusses DJT’s very lame lawsuit against Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.  An excerpt:

“Since then, Mr. Trump has been casting around for a replacement: first via a lame blog that sputtered out and then by dribbling out rumors that he was building his own social network. As that has turned out to be complicated, his latest scheme — and it is a scheme, all right — is to file a class-action lawsuit with himself as lead plaintiff, alleging that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have violated his First Amendment rights.

As if.

It’s clear that Mr. Trump’s ability to communicate the way he likes — loud, unfettered — has been hindered by his exile, even if his most pernicious lies about election fraud have managed to crawl, like misinformation slime mold, into a large part of the body politic. And part of me thinks he actually had gotten addicted, like a lot of us, to erupting at any time, day or night, with whatever message popped into his manic mind.”

Similar misappropriation of the 1st Amendment is perfectly encapsulated by this comic from Randall Munroe’s excellent XKCD:

It seems a good time to reflect on some of Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg:

“-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Of, by and for the people – not just the privileged few.

I thought these sentences, written by George Packer in The Atlantic, pretty much said it all about Rumsfeld:

“Wherever the United States government contemplated a wrong turn, Rumsfeld was there first with his hard smile — squinting, mocking the cautious, shoving his country deeper into a hole. His fatal judgment was equaled only by his absolute self-assurance. He lacked the courage to doubt himself. He lacked the wisdom to change his mind.”

Another from David Leonhardt’s NYT The Morning; collated data showing new Covid case rates by county and corresponding vaccination rates:

Get vaccinated; it’s not just for your benefit, but also for your friend’s, neighbor’s, family’s, country’s, and world’s.